Fiction

The Orange Grove

Translated by

“A little jewel, finely chiseled.” —ELLE

Twin brothers Amed and Aziz live in the peaceful shade of their family’s orange grove. But when a bomb kills the boys’ grandparents, the war that plagues their country changes their lives forever. Blood will repay blood, and at the command of a local militant group, either Amed or Aziz must take up a belt of explosives to offer the ultimate sacrifice.

Years later, the surviving twin is a student actor in a wintry Montreal, preparing for an end-of-year performance. When his director gives him a role that forces him to confront the past, Amed—or is it Aziz?—also receives the opportunity to exorcise old ghosts. With sensitivity and grace, Larry Tremblay explores difficult questions: What does it take to heal? How do we forgive? And can art ever adequately address suffering? At once timeless and undeniably relevant, written with the sharp purity of desert poetry, The Orange Grove depicts the haunting inheritance of war and its aftermath.

ISBN

9781571311191

Publish Date

05/10/2016

Pages

176

Dimensions

5.25 × 8 × 0.44 in

Weight

7.6 oz

Cover Art

Author

Larry Tremblay

Larry Tremblay is a writer, director, actor, and Kathakali specialist. He is the author of thirty books, including The Orange Grove, and more than twenty plays, which have been translated and produced in more than a dozen languages. He lives in Montreal.

Translator

Sheila Fischman

Sheila Fischman has translated more than 150 Quebecois novels from French to English, including Larry Tremblay’s The Orange Grove. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation, the Columbia University Translation Center Award (twice), and, most recently, the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize.

Praise and Prizes

“A tale of the innumerable tragedies of war—bereavement, brainwashing, aftermath—told with the lyricism of an epic parable or fairytale, one the reader will not soon forget.”

Publishers Weekly
“Larry Tremblay’s ability is not so much to weave a storyline as to unravel one with finesse and beauty.”

Toronto Sun
“A little jewel, finely chiseled.”

Elle
“The voluntary simplicity of Larry Tremblay’s writing recalls the story of Cain and Abel or the parable of the Prodigal Son… . With The Orange Grove, Tremblay gives us a novel we should read … not once, but twice.”

La Presse (Quebec)
“The Orange Grove could have been one novel on war among others. But its literary qualities, its fluidity and at the same time its poetry, its concision and at the same time its density, make an exceptional book. Nuanced, contrasting, rough but also sensual, scattered with powerful dialogues but never rambling, the writing takes guts… . The Orange Grove is necessary fiction on war.”

Le Devoir (Quebec)

The Orange Grove

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Praise and Prizes

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